1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus, and a host device connected to the image forming apparatus, and a direct-print control method of the host device. More particularly, the present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus connected to a host device to transmit one or more directly-printable file types to the host device, and a host device and a method thereof in which a direct print option menu of a matching file is provided using the file types received from the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printers which support a direct-print function for PDF, TIFF, JPG or other format files have recently become widely used.
The direct-print function means that printing is directly performed only by transmitting files to a printer without executing a separate application program on a host device, such as a personal computer (PC), a notebook personal computer (PC), a digital camera, or the like. When such a direct-print function is supported, there is no need for a separate printer driver, thereby enhancing user convenience.
Direct-printing enables a printer to print bitmap data when the file is directly transmitted to the printer, without the use of a printer driver and an interpreter of the printer converting the transferred file into bitmap data. Accordingly, it is possible to print a file which a user desires to print without a request for the file from the application program.
However, in the host device, whether direct-printing is possible in the printer or not is determined after printing is performed or after a user checks printer requirements, and thus the user experiences inconvenience.
Various directly-printable types of files may be set according to the printer requirements. Accordingly, when a plurality of printers is connected, the user may need to check the requirements of each printer or individually check which files are directly-printable through the printing operation, thus causing user inconvenience.